Broadband News
News, views and analysis
Portugal gets 1 Gigabit broadband
13 Oct 2009 | 09.22 Europe/London
Keeping a promise it made back in August, Portugese cable TV operator ZON has launched a commercial broadband product offering 1 Gbps to the consumer.
The company claims that it is “the first telecom operator in Europe to launch a 1 Gigabit access speed to the residential sector” (translation). Globally Japan and Korea are the only countries with similar high-speed offerings, although 1 Gbps was tested in Amsterdam last year.
ZON’s 1 Gbps service, which is only available in areas where the company has upgraded its network, is offered as part of a triple-play package with 96 TV channels, 14 radio channels, a fixed telephone line with unlimited calls, and 1 Gbps symmetric broadband connection with no download limits.
The price is a bit of a stunner: €249.90 per month for the first year, plus an equipment installation and activation fee of €99. Recalling BT CEO Ian Livingstone's comment earlier this year, this package is the Ferrari of the broadband world, and at that price we'd be willing to bet that most people will indeed be happy with a Ford.
Remember also that 1 Gbps is a maximum speed, and that real world performance would be determined by other factors, such as contention in the local loop (the neighbours hogging the bandwidth), and the capacity of the backhaul network. User Zybster on www.japantoday.com, sums it up like this:
ZON Multimedia is the largest cable TV operator in Portugal, with over 1.5 million subscribers. Formerly a division of the incumbent Portugal Telecom Group, PT Multimedia was spun off in November 2007 and renamed as ZON Multimedia in January 2008.
UPDATED: To add that the upload speed is also 1 Gbps.
The company claims that it is “the first telecom operator in Europe to launch a 1 Gigabit access speed to the residential sector” (translation). Globally Japan and Korea are the only countries with similar high-speed offerings, although 1 Gbps was tested in Amsterdam last year.
ZON’s 1 Gbps service, which is only available in areas where the company has upgraded its network, is offered as part of a triple-play package with 96 TV channels, 14 radio channels, a fixed telephone line with unlimited calls, and 1 Gbps symmetric broadband connection with no download limits.
The price is a bit of a stunner: €249.90 per month for the first year, plus an equipment installation and activation fee of €99. Recalling BT CEO Ian Livingstone's comment earlier this year, this package is the Ferrari of the broadband world, and at that price we'd be willing to bet that most people will indeed be happy with a Ford.
Remember also that 1 Gbps is a maximum speed, and that real world performance would be determined by other factors, such as contention in the local loop (the neighbours hogging the bandwidth), and the capacity of the backhaul network. User Zybster on www.japantoday.com, sums it up like this:
Having such speeds is like trying to drive a Ferrari in a countryside; you can boast of theoretical speeds, but ... once you connect to "real" internet, especially using foreign lines, you get back to being stuck in the narrow lines or in the internet traffic. But hey, you get your bragging rights!
ZON Multimedia is the largest cable TV operator in Portugal, with over 1.5 million subscribers. Formerly a division of the incumbent Portugal Telecom Group, PT Multimedia was spun off in November 2007 and renamed as ZON Multimedia in January 2008.
UPDATED: To add that the upload speed is also 1 Gbps.